holding on and letting go
by lydiamartins
Summary: a comatose cancer patient with a broken girl lying beside him doesn't look much like a fairytale ending, from afar - rosescorpius, for hpfc's fic exchange - for haley (lezonne)!


**summary | **a comatose cancer patient with a broken girl lying beside him doesn't look much like a fairytale ending, from afar - rosescorpius, for hpfc's fic exchange - for haley!

**notes | **this is for haley (**lezonne**) in the holiday fic exchange at hpfc - hope you guys like this, (: this is also for **the hunger games challenge, round one** at hpfc.

thanks to the flawless zee (**skylight glory**) for beta-reading this!

**prompts&pairings | **scorpiusrose - "every story has an ending", kissing, romance, tragedy/hurt/comfort, family rivalry

**holding on and letting go**  
scorpiusrose

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The first time that they meet is at a train station.

Owls fly by, tearful parents send off their children to another year at Hogwarts, vendors walk by, selling beans of every flavor imaginable (even those one might not even begin to think of), speaking in shrill voices to advertise — there's an atmosphere of familiarity to the place, even for the gaggles of first years, who find themselves a compartment near the front of the train. More groups of students make their way into the station, walking right into the barrier of aged stone, emerging in the warmth of erratic noises and flushed faces.

Scorpius' father holds a tight grip upon his son's shoulder and directs him towards the train station, towards the other likely Slytherins (always the purebloods, no doubt), and maintains a plain expression as he grimaces at another family who approaches the train. Scorpius is given specific instructions to stay away from that Weasley girl (because after nineteen years, family rivalries still rage violently).

(On the other side, she's been given the same instructions.)

.

She watches him from a distance, now and then.

Scorpius keeps his head down, traveling among the less common passageways, and concealing himself in dark green cloaks, fading into the shadows and the darkness, like a prince concealed in layers of ice — she's aware of the reason — for the same reason why individuals introduce themselves to her, and Rose thinks that she doesn't hold anything against him.

There's no point in holding something against a person (no matter what her father had told her) when they have done no injustice — these are mistakes carried down from pureblood generations, and Rose is sure that she isn't that prejudiced against the Malfoys. Then again, this isn't the first time that she's heard of the matter or been told stories of the deaths. (In the beginning, like any other, she had felt justified in her prejudice.)

Sometimes, she still looks at him differently — it's been past a year now, into the third-year of Hogwarts, and Rose keeps to herself; she isn't book-smart like her mother, but she has a certain aura around her, as though she won't associate with idiots and lesser individuals whose only purpose for the friendship between them is to copy off answers, or to ask more information and stories about her parents.

.

He asks her to the Winter Ball, once upon a time, just as friends.

Rose, of course, had clarified the matter, and declared them nothing more than classmates who are mere acquaintances of one another and had accepted the offer — much to the chagrin of the majority of her Gryffindor classmates, who had assumed that family rivalries should always hold root, no matter the circumstances, no matter the people — but she's sort of sick of her so-called friends, anyways.

They swirl together awkwardly, stepping on one another's feet until Rose ends up laughing, and asks him, _Haven't your parents ever taught you how to dance — at least some sort of dancing lessons?_ It's an innocent enough question, at least in her mind.

_Mother never wanted that — Father wouldn't bear the Muggle lessons,_ he replies, smoothly, and Rose thinks about how lucky she is, not for the first time. Perhaps, she might not have the most wealth in the wizarding world, but she has a family who loves her and have taught her Muggle things, and given her everything that she could ever ask for.

Rose smiles to herself, _Then, I'll teach you how to dance_, she says in that sort of self-assured way that only the daughter of two heroes could manage to pull off without sounding absurd. _We can make a deal — I'll teach you how to dance . . . and I'll come up with another favor._

_._

She ends up asking the favor a few months later, over the summer holidays.

(It's primarily to either start pushing the rules — technically, her mum and dad had never outlawed dating, at least not saying the worlds directly — or to make a point to all of her friends, who had had boyfriends instead of boy friends since a few months back. It was all a very new trend, apparently, carrying around a boy on your arm as though he was a new favored toy to be admired.)

It had started off rather simply - a simple act of kindness that though she would not like to admit she valued, that should not have been required in the first place. Giggles echoed throughout the tight expanse, cotton brushing against tweed against an itchy form of silk, until a mouth was silenced with the abrasive, silencing slap of a rough hand, in which three cuts had been deepened upon milky pins. Rose could trace a lengthy shadow across the slits of the alabaster door, the fine-grained gypsum tracing a luminescent sign onto his palm, soon falling onto the wooden chips. It was primarily her own fault, that she, Rose Weasley, was stuck in this sort of situation, in a closet full of what hopefully felt like wet sand, deflated beach balls, and memories reminiscent of a previous year's disastrous reunion.

Which was why, this year, the Weasley Family Reunion of yet another year, had to go swimmingly well; and it was, at least until details were brought up by Auntie Muriel, who Rose and her current fake date were hiding from, having quickly evaded the situation from running away, quite literally. Auntie Muriel was a very large woman, with a quirky fashion sense, dressing as though she was thirty five, not seventy five, currently donning a denim top and high waisted miniskirts (decked out in colour). To be quite frank, the peculiarities of Auntie Muriel were the only distraction of the dull party, at least until she had brought up questions about her and her escort's first date — which was this. Packed into a bathroom closet with leaky pipes and dangerous equipment was not how Rose Weasley had imagined a first date with a person like Scorpius Malfoy.

(Quite honestly, if she was looking at the situation even three weeks prior, Rose wouldn't have believed that she was ridiculous enough to succumb into peer pressure and even then, choose someone such as him to be her fake date. It was a simple matter, nevertheless — the two of them were good enough friends, and . . . finding a fake boyfriend on quick notice turned out to be a lot harder than previously assumed).

_As soon as we get out of this,_ she hoarsely whispers, applying a rough push towards Scorpius, _I am going to kill you._

She can quite literally feel him smirking through the darkness, as he replies,_ Weren't you the one, in the first place, to ask of this favour? If you think about it, it's entirely your fault — you were the one who forced me into this._

_Just shut up,_ she retorts, fumbling in the darkness,_ if we're lucky enough, this reunion will be over, sooner than later._ Time really never has moved slower.

.

She ends up boarding the train, after all.

It's not as though there's any other way to arrive at Hogwarts, and Rose isn't planning on following her father's questionable means of transit — the bell rings in the distance, and she hops in, waving back to her parents, pushing her way through the hallway, before finding the last empty compartment. She peers through the window, reason being a last minute decision, something of the spur of the moment, and stops herself when she sees the familiar whitewashed blonde hair, a smirk, and an empty compartment.

Rose walks up and down the corridors a few more times before realizing that there's no other way to avoid a conversation with him and settles down into the compartment, placing her burnt sienna-colored suitcases upon the top, pulling out a small book. The two of them spend the next half-hour in silence, as she stares at the colours out the window, rivers and waterfalls cascading by.

.

He grabs at her hand once — the first to instigate something more than a friendship.

It's in the middle of the night; the Headmaster's called down all of the students to sleep in the Great Hall. Rumors of another monster, another battle at hogwarts emerging out of the peaceful-seeming shadows, erupt, and a crescendo of voices form until there's nothing but silence, and the occasional snores; he grabs onto her hand in the brief moments of darkness, and she stares at the ceiling, wondering how life had ever gotten this messed up.

.

She introduces Scorpius (as her boy friend, nothing more) to her parents on a Sunday morning.

Her mother smiles grimly, and gives a pointed look at her father not to say anything too stupid or harsh, and her father looks slightly flustered, but at the end of the day, Rose realizes that her parents aren't the people that she thought they were — it's been twenty-two or so years since the Battle of Hogwarts, and they're still judging individuals; _Twenty-two years,_ she tells her father, _it's been twenty-two years, and you're still holding a grudge against the Malfoys._

_I'm just trying to do what's best for you,_ he had replied — she hadn't been quite sure what to say back to that. Perhaps her parents were right, that people of a certain type couldn't change. . .but it couldn't be true. Rose wouldn't let it.

The two of them leave the next morning, back to spending Hogwarts (alone) during Winter Break — the same, cozy feeling from the previous years isn't there, and for once, Rose is the first to bring up the question — it isn't as though she's not a very talkative person (because she is), but there's really nothing left to say but the overwhelming silence, and the question that neither of them want to know the answer of. _So, that . . . appointment that you had last week — how'd it go?_

Scoripus maintains a plain face, _It went fine._

She can tell that he's lying — Rose has known him for six years already, and she's developed a fine sense, through magic and by other means, to figure out when an individual is lying, and she knows her best friend better than he knows himself. _You're lying._ She didn't bother to say it nicely. Niceties and politeness were saved for people that she was trying to impress, like new teachers on the first day of school, or visiting Aurors.

_Stage three cancer — six months left, they say._ He's trying to stay strong — Rose can tell that much. She's the first one this time, enveloping him in a teary hug, muttering that everything is going to be okay (but it's really not, now is it?), because this isn't supposed to happen. Not to them. Not to anyone.

.

Rose goes with him to one of the guidance counselor sessions — she sits outside, perched upon a mahogany chair.

The still of the ambiance frightens her and as she watches the other children — she closes her eyes, and then Rose thinks for a while, in the brief moments of silence between the rushing bells that don't seem to cause any alarm as newborns are rushed past, young children who manage to stay calm as needles are injected into their legs, their eyes not even watering. Rose thinks that she's luckier than she realizes.

Her mum calls on the phone — Rose ends up telling her the truth, and her throat tightens at the words, unspoken; _thank Merlin that it's not you._

(It's not like she's running a marathon, but her breath is winded and she can't find a way to be able to stop this secrets, all of these secrets that are drowning her six feet under. It's almost over though; that much, she knows, and that if she just continues this mess, she'll be free, at the finish line, at least. Once she finishes this, at the gates, she'll be with him, he promised her that much, at least. It's the last day when she wonders if it's worth it; after all these weeks and months, she's still as alone as she was at the start. The road is getting tougher, the incline a higher steep, and suddenly to move a single step, it's impossible. Just one night, only one night, she takes a break, walking on the wild side of life.)

And then, there are the doctors — the doctors who deliver the same news, over and over again, with a calm, emotionless expression, and she thinks that it must be impossible to have a job like this. A job when one has to tell people, children who haven't even lived that long into their lives (lives that were supposed to be great) that they're going to die, soon, and there's nothing that they can do about it.

This isn't supposed to happen to them — they're magical, quite literally, in fact. She smiles emptily, laughing to herself, thinking about all those years ago when she had promised Scorpius that if anybody was going to kill him, it was going to be her — it was never going to be her, not in the end.

.

Once upon a time, a fairytale consisted of a boy, and a girl, falling in love with a happily ever after ending, drawn together by fate — magnetic forces, and apologies, and suddenly, everything would be fine. Rose sits down on the chair next to him, and rests her head on his shoulder until the dawn — from afar, a comatose cancer patient with a broken girl lying beside him doesn't look much like a fairytale ending, but for her, it's enough. It's more than enough.

After all, every story has an ending - yet, not all of them are happy ones.

.

happy new year's eve/new year's, everybody!


End file.
